Flawless

Flawless [12]

12.

My hand closed around the picture, tighter and tighter, crushing it until it became a tiny ball in the palm of my hand. My mind was racing. He was here. In this locker room, more than anything he had been in my locker. I felt naked and exposed although I was still fully clothed, he had managed to gain access into my locker, he had been in my house, was he right? Could I not escape him? I wasn’t safe in the open, I wasn’t safe with other people around me, I wasn’t safe at home and clearly, I wasn’t safe at school.

I pulled my bag off the hook on the back of the door, unzipping the various compartments I started pulling everything out of it. Checking. Making sure that nothing had been taken.

“Is everything okay?” Elody asked, a towel wrapped around her torso as she headed for the showers. “Have you lost something?”

“Uh….my cell phone… I think.” I knew for fact that my phone was in the front pocket of my bag, next to my purse.

Once Elody had walked off, I quickly check just to make sure that it was there. It was. The slightest fragment of relief washed over me. Then it left me quickly when I was struck with an epiphany. The stranger had taken this photo of Poet, it was psychotic really. To think that he had attacked her, then took his time to snap this photograph. Not only was it psychotic but it also showed that he wasn’t frightened by me.

I didn’t know if I was someone to be frightened of, but obviously he didn’t think so, if he was then he wouldn’t be doing this to me.

As I changed I realised I had to get serious about finding out who this guy was. But I didn’t really have anything to go off, I seriously lacked any evidence that I could use.

The bell rang and the locker room quickly emptied, when I realised that I had been standing in the same place for the last few minutes in my dirty gym clothes, I finally changed. Before leaving the locker room I un-rolled the photo and straightened out the creases before pocketing the picture in my jeans.

 I skipped third period English to go to the hospital, even though I had planned to go after school, the events of today spurred me to go earlier. I needed to know if Poet remembered anything about the attack, I needed every bit of information, maybe there might be a feature of a characteristic that stuck out and would indicate something.

I mulled over all the questions I had in mind as I drove to the other side of town to the hospital. The day was more miserable than the last, winter was bearing down on Washington quickly, as fall diminished. I suspect it will snow within the next week or so, but hopefully not before the Halloween party.

Ugh the Halloween party, I had almost forgot, just another thing for me to think about.

Part of me wanted to get through whatever this is, just so I can sleep easy, and the other part just wanted me to sleep and hope that when I woke up this person will be bored of tormenting me.

I found a spot towards the back of the parking lot of the hospital between a jeep and a rusty corolla. I pulled out my phone to message Luka to tell him that I had the car, I will never quite understand why my parents got us a car to share, it doesn’t make any sense, plus when you think about it; a silver Yaris is more of a girly car anyway. I guess it was my parents way of saving money.

When I flicked open my phone I noticed that I have several unread messages from and unknown number and one missed call. I opened the first one and began reading.

‘Hey its Archer, Poet gave me your number at the gig :)’

‘Hey I feel like I owe you an explanation about what happened before, can I call?’